Learning Pangolin BEYOND 3D - chapter 5: Animations - curves and splines

Besides rotation effects and simple up-down movements, it is possible to define "movement paths" in Pangolin BEYOND 3D. This means that you can create curves and splines as well. This video tutorial explains how curves and splines can be created using Pangolin BEYOND 3D:




This is what the video is about:
Click once again: See "create a new 3d animation" and I will once again say: file new. So we've covered the kinda the solid object. Let me cover some curves as well, Beyond has the capability generating curbs. These are really flat, sorta like the normal stuff we do in laser just basically a line the first curve in width. Click is this one circle enable easier output and it may not look very impressive that we can at a circle would create a circle we could do that with our normal program what's the big deal I we want to do that with the 3d program with a neat thing about curves is that weekend use them to do something else with so for example what all do is come over here at the surfaces at a teapot to the scene now we have both a teapot and that circle all click and just drag the move that he played out the way for now click on the circle and we'll make that circle bigger and now will start covering some other more advanced topics when I click on the teapot again and I'm gonna at Amata fire to it now what is a modifier modifier is something that can change the object one other ways that we can change the object is by deforming in various ways and you can investigate the summit just click on the band for now just to show you are at a band modifier so when you click on this you have to actually click on the modifier and now what we can do it start to see it it will then the object you really see it here and so this is a way to band stuff that's not really what I wanted to show you just kinda got there on my way to showing you the real thing with respect to the circles the condom on a fire where we can use the circle is called a constraint a quick on the teapot and say I want to add a constraint constraint means that we're constraining we're we're holding somehow the up the motion up the object that we've add this constraint to the Inc particular constraint then we'll show you what's up called curve align we want to align this teapot to weaker cyclic on the modifier that I added one other things that you'll see down here is source curve now we have a very simple seen it just has this teapot and a curve in it solution it select be only curve we have and now I'll call your attention to this position on the curve as I move this upward and downward one other things that you'll see is that I'm moving the Peapod around to the curve there's something else that we could do if you take a little little further down where you see this just orientation if I click on this then not only does it change that position the teapot but it will also control its Korean tation as well so that's pretty cool who can take a simple circle and we can use it to control the path up an object now remember little earlier when I was showing you telling you that sometimes it's handy have an object you using but not really visible on the laser in this case worst we're seeing that curve out there on a laser maybe we don't want to do that if we unchecked this thing here visible in render then if we can use this only is the path and not as invisible element on the laser display so how you control this how you create an animation this remember pretty much everything in be on 3d can be animated see that will circle there so if I set this back to zero at time number one by right click on this and say add keyframe and move to frame a hundred and I'm missus and percentage so 100 percent on the curve means it's all the way around there if I right click and say attic efrain there's now we have two key frames want their and one there as time runs as the time changes you can see then I'm making the teapot follow the path on that curve in just like we did before we can come click on the teapot come over here at the basic and say I want star red I want you to and blue group have two key at a keyframe there in the color and come over here change the color and a keyframe here so now we have teapot changing color and following that path all at the same time rendered that out frames send beyond 3d minimize and there's our animation and remember what I was saying disable the laser output be on 3d if you minimize otherwise you'll get double the laser that's what's happening on the laser right now I have the beyond normal beyond cue generating this animation I have beyond 3d that still out putting that teapot up there have to remember to turn off that laser output when you're done so let's come to continue this and have a little bit more fun with it well do is come over here to the circle per select delete shows some other other curves specifically I'll come over here to curb in this next one over is called in and gone all to and gone you might have heard about polygon that's really what I N gone is it's a polygon that's very versatile where you can control the Pollyanna serve it up for example if you want to control create a pentagon sr5 sided gone if you want to create hexagon has 6 I'd like green octagon that 8 side to this really allows you to control how many sides the polly got has automatically like that let's say we get we create this hexagon here a come over here to the skill to make that bigger and now what all do I'll take my lil her valign tool here and say the source curve is this and gone we still have this you keyframes and the frame slider into now you'll see is that it follows the position up this hexagon just as it did with the circle so these n guns are pretty cool and you can use these as paths just as we're doing here it's not only that but what you could do on CL however file new enable laser output come over here to curve add this kind of the square resize that bigger add another and gone and let's say remember everything and beyond 3d can be animated so it let's say at the starting time I want the small one to have 12 sides at a keyframe in the big 12 have four sides at different in it as time runs we want the big one to really increase at a keyframe while the small one is decreasing attic efrain as time runs both are these n guns are animating we can meet the color and your perhaps make the big one not quite so big so we can create I have abstracts this way it doesn't have to be 3d we can stack them up vertically do different things like that just kinda give me some ideas here what can be done another curve that's pretty fun is the spiral curve here just click on this and I'll show you some basic parameters ovett here's the spiral here's the number love turns that the spiral makes and you can animate this remember so we could start off with just one turn at a keyframe here as time goes on weekend add curves to that right click at a key frames so we can make this animated and the neat thing about it is take off their animation maybe we'll make this at this many so now it's not I am A but what we're gonna do it will make this a path will take a cue resize that Q make it small at. Remember its curve align.
Click on the curve align choose the Kerr and now what we can do we can make the Q follow the path up the spiral just like we did before we say time zero its at position 0 right click add keyframe and at time a hundred it is deposition 100 at keyframe and we press play and you could see that this is following the path that looks a little jerky here and as i render the frames on the laser you'll see it seems kinda slow that's because the video capture software I'm doing this tutorial with is really taking a lot of the processor for power normally when you click the buttons the stuff is zips right through so once again will generate the frames send it to be on and there's our animation show a little bit more about the curves one occurs attacks said he is wanna do some simple tax you just add some text in there just with this to the we also have 3d text over here but you show you the to detect come over here enter the text you want shoes too far like that and the rest is just just like normal you move around resize it if we want to create an animation for example scrolling tax what we might do is come over here to position maybe zooming up upon a bit come over to position pan this of and remember transform controls the position rotation size so at time 0 I will right click and at a keyframe their or move over to hear move this position like that I can't continue to move of scream like this right click at keyframe so now we can create scrolling tax and they can animate the color and then didn't do all kinds of other fancy stuff as you've seen so far and as usual you regis render and then send it to be our so the last typeof curve that i'm gonna show you and we'll put this whole thing together is the kinda curve that you control to here's called it empty curb it release because doesn't have any predefined shape it is a shape that you create yourself when you click on that you'll notice that this button all the sudden becomes active in says at a point when they do they want to go into the top you here just start clicking what you'll see is it you can create your on Kerr when you're in the curve from node this modeling tool bar all the sudden becomes an active I'm not gonna cover all the things that this does in this particular basic tutorial but I will cover few things go ahead and able laser output so while you're creating the curve you can't really see it on the laser to see it on later you have to click of a bit now it kinda creepy creates turned it into an object which can then be scandal either I click on this again this button up here will will create either a closed curve as you can see it all the sudden close that word open kar that that button there and these plus and minus really control the smoothness at the curb you can see how many little in between pointer added to this automatically like that this is really some other things ways in which you can control the curb in you can export somebody's other buttons later so now we have our own created curve just as we did before we can take an object such as the peapod click on the teapot add a curve align modifier click on the curve align select the only curve in San are seen at orientation and now we can have this peapod follow are hand-drawn.